Change to Winhttp://www.changetowin.org
enOSHA's Injury Tracking Rule: A Reasonable and Urgent Step Forward for Worker Safety and Healthhttp://www.changetowin.org/news/oshas-injury-tracking-rule-reasonable-and-urgent-step-forward-worker-safety-and-health
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">By Eric Frumin, Safety and Health Director, Change to Win</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The Department of Labor has finally entered the age of “Big Data.” The Labor Department is making a significant step forward into the 21st Century by requiring employers in the highest-risk sectors to electronically provide OSHA information that employers have been recording since shortly after the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1971.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Unfortunately, until now—in contrast to its sister agency the Mine Safety and Health Administration, as well as other federal labor and public health agencies—OSHA has failed to make most of the covered employers send these data directly to the Labor Department.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This is exactly the data OSHA needs to effectively target its limited number of inspections as well as its compliance assistance programs. It is unfathomable that OSHA did not have easy access to it before.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">OSHA has hard evidence for why this step is needed. But that evidence seems to matter little to the corporate trade associations and their GOP allies who oppose virtually every new agency mandate, no matter how well-founded or ultimately helpful to the employers themselves. In this case, they claim that public disclosure will somehow irreparably harm employers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">However, since 1997, OSHA has already required a small subset of affected employers in only the highest-risk sectors to provide their annual statistical summaries of worker injuries and illnesses to OSHA on request, in part for the purpose of assisting the agency in targeting enforcement inspections. This is called the OSHA Data Initiative (“ODI”). In 2005, OSHA finally released these summary data to the public on OSHA's website, and only as a result of an order from a Federal District Court in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The New York Times.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Fortunately, OSHA has proceeded to use the ODI data for targeting its inspections to specific establishments with self-reported high rates within these already high-risk sectors, and often with remarkable results. While 23 states have exercised the option to run their own enforcement programs in the private sector, very few of them have made use of these important targeting data. Some have relied instead on equivalent state workers' compensation data, but most—including California, the biggest state program—have not, nor has Federal OSHA forced them to adopt this technique.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">After sending letters to the worksites with the highest rates, OSHA then inspected roughly 25 percent of these pre-notified employers under its Site-Specific Targeting (“SST”) emphasis program, and found violations in roughly 70 percent of all inspected sites. With these ODI data in hand, OSHA has been able to assure that its inspectors are going to the workplaces with serious hazards and likely violations. The DOL Inspector General reported that for FY 2011, SST inspections “resulted in more [violations] per inspection (4.7 average) than other targeting programs (2.8 average).”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Such inspections are critically important to OSHA's overall prevention mission. As the RAND Corp. found in its often-ignored but revealing 1998-2005 study of OSHA inspections in relatively small manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, inspections which both found any violations and imposed penalties resulted in a cumulative 20 percent drop in workers' compensation claims over the following two years (A. Haviland et al, “What kinds of injuries do OSHA inspections prevent?” Journal of Safety Research, August 2010).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Equally important, RAND found that even for violations of the Personal Protective Equipment standard, there was a 17.5 percent reduction in claims for overexertion injuries—indicating that the violations prompted employers to do a wider evaluation of their overall safety and health problems.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The RAND Corp. findings also were confirmed by a joint Harvard University-California Berkeley study for a comparable period, which also reported that inspections with penalties by California state inspectors were associated with a 9.4 percent annual drop in rates of workers' compensation claims (D Levine et al, “Randomized Government Safety Inspections Reduce Worker Injuries with No Detectable Job Loss,” Science, 309: 907, 2012).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">OSHA has been severely underfunded for much of its existence. The Obama administration immediately sought to remedy that gap, and saw both federal and state plan enforcement funding in particular jump by 13 percent in 2010. However, the Republican congressional leadership has consistently refused to provide any further funding, and frequently sought to cut resources for enforcement in DOL appropriations bills. But the existence of the SST program, based on these fundamental targeting data, has helped DOL to find a key point of leverage against employers who would ignore their basic job safety and health obligations.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">So it is a welcome relief that OSHA will now be able to formalize this vital targeting tool, and apply it as a critical additional criterion in designing other targeted emphasis programs in industries where individual employers report persistently high injury rates, like nursing homes, heavy manufacturing, poultry processing, warehousing, waste-handling and other dangerous sectors.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But beyond the mere summary rate information about individual worksites, an additional wealth of valuable information has simply lain fallow in employers' worksite records, awaiting the review by an actual OSHA inspector as part of the rare on-site inspection. The additional data, including details on individual worker injury and illness cases, will now be available to OSHA inspectors, workers, employers and others as a result of OSHA's recent rulemaking. For 34,000 large, sophisticated worksites with more than 250 employees each, OSHA will now require that they annually submit to OSHA both the lists of significant work-related injuries and illnesses, as well as the employer's required “Incident Report” describing the circumstances and underlying causes. None of the submitted information will include personally identifiable data.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Equally important, OSHA will make these reports public, so that workers, counterpart employers, public health researchers and the media will be able to understand in much greater detail the nature of the hazards and injuries that workers face on a daily basis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For decades, workers at these sites have already had a legal right to all of these lists of injuries, including workers' names, as well as their own Incident Reports. But finally, all workers will now have the easy ability to obtain this important information without having to request it from their bosses—and risk the consequences of being labeled “troublemaker,” or worse. (Since the vast majority of America's private-sector workers have no job-security protection, employers can easily discipline, terminate or otherwise discourage workers from “asking too many questions.”)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It is certainly reasonable to expect that this new scrutiny will promote more accurate recordkeeping by large employers concerned with assuring that accurate information is publicly available.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">However, we also expect that this heightened attention by the employers themselves will promote better use of existing records for prevention purposes, by both large and small employers, because of the additional attention that these records will now receive within the enterprise.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Workers' enhanced access to the details found in the Logs and Incident Reports at larger worksites will also promote prevention. As workers learn about the history of incidents that affect them, they will be better prepared to request employer action to fix such hazards going forward. The availability of the Incident Reports will also reveal past problems with the investigation of those incidents (such as “blame the victim” conclusions rather than failures of the employer's training and supervision regimens). Such omissions or misguided excuses interfere in the identification of root causes of those problems in the first place. Without root cause identification, the hazards will continue and resulting injuries and illnesses will recur.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In response to this proposal, employers and their GOP allies have raised several false alarms, including a supposed concerns about confidentiality of workers' personal information. Such concerns are misplaced: OSHA will not even collect workers names or any other information most likely to allow those outside the workplace to identify individual workers. Assuming employers comply with the reporting framework, OSHA will neither hold such data, nor be subject to any unauthorized release of it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Corporate trade associations also have complained about the “threat” of misuse or misinterpretation of their own injury reports, once OSHA makes them public, supposedly rendering the Fortune 500 or even the smaller businesses the subject of unfair comparisons which will irreparably harm the companies' reputations. This barely passes the laugh test. First, much of this data has already been on OSHA's website for more than a decade. During the public comment period, industry representatives were repeatedly pressed to identify examples of such unfair comparisons and wounded reputations. They could not. The truth speaks for itself.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">And since when does Google censor corporate press releases or websites? In the age of Citizens United, corporate America certainly need not feel any threats to its mythical rights to free speech.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">But if the truth hurts, so do infections—a good warning sign of problems needing attention. Injury/illness rates may be so-called “lagging indicators,” and in individual companies or industries other “leading indicators” may be preferable for guiding prevention efforts. But corporate managers are certainly misguided—and putting their workers in continued peril—if they ignore either historical trends or recent incidents. OSHA will now give both them and their at-risk workers the ability to see those trends and incidents in similar or identical situations well beyond the walls and horizons of their own worksites and companies.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">In sum, OSHA's willingness to obtain this information and share it will provide an important service to corporate managers, their workers and others with tangible interest in this issue: investors, prospective workers, and community leaders. If we were looking for a cheaper and more efficient system to engage that interest, it would be hard to do so.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The other important innovation is OSHA's new provision requiring employers to assure that employers' reporting procedures are reasonable, and that employers train workers about both the procedure and their right to report injuries without any discrimination or retaliation. And for the first time, OSHA incorporates that prohibition on retaliation directly into its enforceable regulations.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">OSHA has good reason to do so. There is ample evidence that some employers systematically discourage workers from reporting work-related injuries and illnesses, on a scale large enough to affect not only the validity of the statistics at individual worksites but, according to the <a href="http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshfaq1.htm#q02" target="_BLANKǇ">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, nationally as well. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office's recent analysis of employer practices found a shockingly common pressure on medical providers to modify their treatment decisions such that the cases will no longer meet OSHA's recordability criteria.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“Disincentives for reporting and recording injuries and illnesses can result in pressure on occupational health practitioners from employers or workers to provide insufficient medical treatment that avoids the need to record the injury or illness. From its survey of U.S. health practitioners, GAO found that over a third of them had been subjected to such pressure” (US Government Accountability Office, “Enhancing OSHA's Records Audit Process Could Improve the Accuracy of Worker Injury and Illness Data,” GAO 10-10, October 2009).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">For several years, OSHA also has been very concerned about employers' deliberate policies which discouraged worker reporting of recordable cases, and taken action within its highly limited existing authority under Section 11(c) to stop them. However, OSHA was not the only party to the rulemaking that emphasized that employers affirmatively seek to reduce their reported injuries—without necessarily preventing them. As the National Federation of Independent Business, one of the largest and most sophisticated corporate lobbyists, stated it:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">“[T]he proposed rule will make small businesses less likely to report injuries. NFIB expects that … many small businesses will report fewer injuries because the negative consequences of logging too many injuries will be so great.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The stakes are simply too high for OSHA to allow employers to continue with these abusive policies, and its decision to make use of its full statutory and enforcement authority is long overdue.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<hr /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Eric Frumin is the Safety and Health Director for Change to Win, the partnership of four national labor unions founded in 2005 representing 4 million workers. He is a leading national trade union spokesperson on issues of job safety, health and disability, including OSHA standard setting and enforcement, and occupational disease and injury surveillance. He also has directed the safety and health programs for Change to Win-affiliated unions since 1974, and testifies frequently before congressional committees on workplace safety and health and related issues.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">This BNA Insights does not represent the views of Bloomberg BNA, which welcomes other points of view.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Reproduced with permission from Copyright 2016 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) <a href="http://www.bna.com" target="_BLANK">www.bna.com</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Originally published in BBNA’s OSH Reporter on June 30, 2016.</span></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 05 Jul 2016 13:28:39 +0000craig810 at http://www.changetowin.orgAmericans Troubled By Income Inequality Across Party Lines; Wage Theft Hurts America's Most Vulnerable; Missouri Governor Vetoes Bill, Averting Right-to-Work Statehttp://www.changetowin.org/news/americans-troubled-income-inequality-across-party-lines-wage-theft-hurts-americas-most
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/2015-06-05_1308.png" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">It's growing apparent to many Americans that even if you do all the right things, like get a college education, that chances are you won't get ahead. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, six in 10 Americans said the government should do more to fix income inequality, and that the only people who actually advance are the few people at the top.<br /></span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/business/inequality-a-major-issue-for-americans-times-cbs-poll-finds.html?hpw&amp;rref=business&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=well-region&amp;region=bottom-well&amp;WT.nav=bottom-well&amp;_r=1"><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Inequality Troubles Americans Across Party Lines, Times/CBS Poll Finds</span></span></strong></a><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"> - The New York Times</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Advancement is a problem in America, especially for the low-wage workforce. But Americans who work these low wage jobs are more likely to have their wages stolen. It's the lack of resources that keeps many of these vulnerable workers from pursuing the money they've rightfully earned. But thankfully, there are places like Community Legal Services in Philly that offer free legal aid to victims.<br /></span><a href="http://www.phillyvoice.com/wage-theft-hits-those-who-can-afford-it-least/"><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Wage theft hits those who can least afford it</span></span></strong></a><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"> - Philly Voice</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Unions not only protect workers from labor violations like wage-theft, but they also offer guidance in the collective bargaining process, ensuring fair pay and benefits which sustains the middle-class. Governor Jay Nixon vetoed a bill that prevented Missouri from being the 26th right-to-work state. &#x201C;This extreme measure would take our state backward, squeeze the middle-class, lower wages for Missouri families, and subject businesses to criminal and unlimited civil liability,&#x201D; Mr. Nixon said.<br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/politics/missouri-bill-to-curb-unions-is-vetoed.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Missouri: Bill to Curb Unions Is Vetoed</span></a> - Associated Press</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p></div></div></div>Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:09:24 +0000craig799 at http://www.changetowin.org200 Adjunct Professors Successfully Form a Union; New York State Requires Nail Salons to Post Manicurists’ Bill of Rights; Ohio “Bans the Box” on State Government Applications http://www.changetowin.org/news/200-adjunct-professors-successfully-form-union-new-york-state-requires-nail-salons-post
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/Nail_workers.png" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Last week, over 200 part-time adjunct professors at Ithaca College organized and successfully formed a union with the Service Employees International Union. <span style="background: white; color: rgb(59, 38, 23);">Sarah Grunberg, teaching in the Sociology department</span> said: "This will not only make the college stronger as a whole but will also continue to set an example nationally that part-time faculty deserve better working conditions and that coming together can and does facilitate positive change."<br /><strong><span style="font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.lansingstar.com/news-page/11740-ithaca-college-part-time-faculty-join-seiu-local-200united" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Ithaca College Part-time Faculty Join SEIU Local 200 United</span></a> - The Lansing Star</span></strong></span></span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">In hopes of improving working conditions for manicurists in New York. Effective immediately, every nail salon in New York is required to post a bill of rights in plain sight for nail workers and their customers. Thanks to The New York Times for their investigative reporting which revealed widespread exploitation in the nail salon industry, manicurists in New York will now be aware of their employee rights. <strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/nyregion/new-york-nail-salons-workers-bill-of-rights.html?_r=0"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">New York Nail Salons Now Required to Post Workers&#x2019; Bill of Rights </span></a>- The New York Times</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">For those living in Ohio who have served their time in prison and are looking for work, Ohio just became the 17th state to 'ban the box' on state government applications. "The box" is on job applications that prospective employees must check to disclose past convictions. By removing it, ex-offenders will have a better chance at finding work.<br /><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/05/15/ohio-remove-box-convictions-job-form/27373895/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Ohio 'bans the box' on state applications </span></a>- The Associated Press</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">&#xA0;</span></p><p>&#xA0;</p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">&#xA0;</span></p><p>&#xA0;</p><p>&#xA0;</p><p>&#xA0;</p></div></div></div>Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:16:22 +0000craig797 at http://www.changetowin.orgFast-food Workers Protested McDonald's Shareholder Meeting; Los Angeles Will Raise Wages to $15 by 2020; New Documentary Stresses the Importance of Responsible Consumerismhttp://www.changetowin.org/news/fast-food-workers-protested-mcdonalds-shareholder-meeting-los-angeles-will-raise-wages-15-2020
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/Cassidy-LA-Minimum-wage-690.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Last week, while McDonald's had their annual shareholder meeting, fast-food workers protested outside their headquarters calling for $15 an hour. The workers chanted "supersize my check" and delivered <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">1.4 million petition signatures calling for McDonald's to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.<span>&#xA0;<br /></span></span></span><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/21/mcdonalds-workers-shareholders-meeting-protest/27705321/">McDonald's workers: 'supersize my check'</a> - USA Today</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The fight for $15 gained another victory, Los Angeles broke will increase their minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. It's another major victory for low-wage workers across the country and shows a clear change in American politics, proving that when working people stand-up and speak-out they can change social standards and improve their lives.<br /></span><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/a-fascinating-minimum-wage-experiment-is-about-to-unfold">A Fascinating Minimum-Wage Experiment Is About to Unfold </a>- The New Yorker</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">But the pressure can't only come from workers going on strike and protesting their conditions, people need to be responsible consumers to see real change in all industries. That's according to a new documentary called "The True Cost" which depicts the devastation of the Rana Plaza collapse where 1,129 Bangladesh garment workers died and 2,500 were injured.<br /></span><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/26/there-are-no-easy-answers-to-fashion-s-cruelty.html">There Are No Easy Answers to Fashion&#x2019;s Cruelty </a>- The Daily Beast</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p></div></div></div>Tue, 26 May 2015 16:00:26 +0000craig796 at http://www.changetowin.orgFacebook Boosts Wages to $15/hr; Nail Salons Aren't the Only Ones Violating Human Rights; Oppression and Inequality are Violence in Another Formhttp://www.changetowin.org/news/facebook-boosts-wages-15hr-nail-salons-arent-only-ones-violating-human-rights-oppression-and
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/Facebook2_1299511c_1699534c.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Great news, Facebook boosted pay to $15 an hour for its contract workers! Just yesterday, Facebook announced it would require its US contractors and vendors to pay their workers at least $15 an hour, provide paid time-off for sick days and vacation and offer good benefits.<span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">&#xA0;<br /></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/13/news/facebook-contract-workers-raises"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Facebook gives low-wage workers a boost </span></a>- CNN Money</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the formation of a task force to protect manicurists of nail salons from labor and health violations just days after the New York Times reported widespread human rights violations within the industry. But nail salons aren't the only industry that <span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">has</span> issue<span style="color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">s</span>, little oversight is all too common for workers in agriculture, the hydraulic fracturing oil industry and restaurants.<br /></span><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/12/nail-salon-workers-arent-the-only-ones-who-need-protection-from-abusive-workplaces/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Nail salon workers aren&#x2019;t the only ones who need more protections</span></a> - Washington Post</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">Labor and civil rights have been at the forefront of the media with protests in Baltimore, and strikes in cities across the country demanding economic and social justice. Columnist of the New York Times Mark Bittman wrote a piece explaining the relationship between health, education, income inequality and race. "When people are undereducated, impoverished, malnourished, un- or under-employed, or underpaid and working three jobs, their lives are diminished, as are their opportunities."<br /></span><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/opinion/no-justice-no-anything.html?_r=1&amp;assetType=opinion"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">No Justice, No...Anything</span></a> - New York Times</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">&#xA0;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">&#xA0;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">&#xA0;</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p></div></div></div>Wed, 13 May 2015 20:14:05 +0000craig795 at http://www.changetowin.org Elected Leaders Finally Taking Action to Help America's Low-wage Workers http://www.changetowin.org/news/elected-leaders-finally-taking-action-help-americas-low-wage-workers
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/11NAILSREACTweb-master675.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; margin-bottom: 13.35pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">After federal contract workers went on strike calling for living wages and a union, Charles Gladden a US Senate cafeteria contract worker shocked Capitol Hill when it was revealed he is homeless. Catherine Rampell, a Washington Post columnist, reconnected with Charles a few weeks after she first broke the story. Gladden told Rampell he was thankful for the financial support, but hopes that "his situation will inspire greater support for policies that help homeless and low-wage workers more broadly," like a Model Employer Executive Order.<br /></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/going-beyond-just-a-band-aid/2015/05/07/71bbd0da-f4f1-11e4-84a6-6d7c67c50db0_story.html"><strong>&#x2018;Band-Aid&#x2019; solutions for a homeless Senate worker </strong></a></span></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">-</span></strong><span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">&#xA0;</span></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Washington Post</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 13.35pt;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">For working parents, it's oftentimes a struggle to balance work and family life even with a nine-to-five schedule. Now imagine how hard that would be working two jobs in either the retail or food service sector, where schedules are usually inconsistent from week-to-week. That's one of the many reasons fast-food workers across the country are calling for a union. Workers need to have a voice when decisions on scheduling, time-off, sick days and related issues are being decided.<br /></span></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/08/the-next-labor-fight-is-over-when-you-work-not-how-much-you-make/"><strong>The next labor fight is over when you work, not how much you make </strong></a></span></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">- Washington Post</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 13.35pt;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Last week fast-food workers cheered as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's announced the establishment of a state wage board which would examine and recommend raising wages for New York's fast food industry. But Gov. Cuomo didn't stop there, yesterday he created a new task force to conduct nail salon investigations after a report by The New York Times revealed widespread health, safety, wage and hour violations in New York's nail salon industry.<br /></span></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/nyregion/cuomo-orders-emergency-measures-to-protect-workers-at-nail-salons.html?_r=0">Cuomo Orders Emergency Measures to Protect Workers at Nail Salons<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></a>-</span></span></strong><span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">&#xA0;</span></strong></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">New York Times</span></strong></p></div></div></div>Mon, 11 May 2015 19:40:16 +0000craig794 at http://www.changetowin.orgWall Street Employees Collectively Receive Billions in Bonuses; Cambodian Garment Workers Face Government Crackdown; Workers' Fight Against Wage-Thefthttp://www.changetowin.org/news/wall-street-employees-collectively-receive-billions-bonuses-cambodian-garment-workers-face
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/Cambodian-garment-workers.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">On average, Wall Street Bank employees earn around $190,000 annually. But guess how much 167,800 employees received in bonuses last year? I won't give it away, but to put it in perspective, it's over the $17 billion that could lift the wages of over 2 million people working in fast-food to $15 an hour.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121275/2014-wall-street-bonuses-are-double-minimum-wage-workers-salaries">Wall Street's Yearly Bonuses Could Double the Pay for All of America's Minimum Wage Workers </a>- </span></strong><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">The New Republic</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">The minimum wage is low in America, but it's even lower for Cambodian garment workers. After being over worked and underpaid, workers have continued to push for higher wages, facing deadly strikes. Last January, garment workers got a raise of $128 a month. However, this is well below the government's own living-wage calculation from 2013, which found that a living-wage is between $157 and $177 a month. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/11/cambodian-garment-workers-rise-up-and-face-a-crackdown.html">Cambodian garment workers rise up and face a crackdown </a>- </span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">Al Jazeera</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"></span></strong><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">When you're living paycheck to paycheck, you're living on the edge of poverty. But it's even worse for many day laborers in Washington D.C., who work for contractors who disappear and wind-up never paying them for the wages they're owed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/46933/workers-fights-unpaid-wages-uncompensated-injuries-and-unjust-firings-a/">Workers' Fights</a> - Washington City Paper</span></strong></p></div></div></div>Thu, 12 Mar 2015 17:29:43 +0000craig793 at http://www.changetowin.orgOur Global Supply Chain, from China and Bangladesh to the West Coast Portshttp://www.changetowin.org/news/our-global-supply-chain-china-and-bangladesh-west-coast-ports
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/Ports%20photo%20for%20NEws%20Roundup.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It's New York fashion week, the week where top designers have the latest in fashion modeled. But what happens behind the scenes in our global fashion supply chain in places like Bangladesh. Over a year ago, Bangladesh made headlines when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed, killing more than 1,100 garment workers. The Bangladesh garment industry has over 4 million workers, 80 percent women, who are paid poorly and work in unsafe conditions. &#xA0;<br /></span><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/fast-fashions-lack-of-american-made-clothing-394645059919">Fast fashion&#x2019;s lack of American-made clothing (VIDEO)</a> -</span></strong><strong style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"> MSNBC</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">It's rather difficult not to have purchased at least one item that says "Made in China". BBC investigated the conditions of factories in China and uncovered that on top of low wages and poor working conditions, factories charge new factory recruits a fee, which is sometimes up to an entire months pay. Apple banned the practice, which is called bonded labor. But the BBC's investigation found that Pegatron, a supplier for Apple, breached Apple's standards by charging the fee to their employees. &#xA0;&#xA0;<br /></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31438699">Apple bans 'bonded servitude' for factory workers </a>- BBC News</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"> </span></p><!--[endif]--><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">An estimated $1 trillion dollars in goods from places like Bangladesh and China moves through west coast ports each year. For several months now, there has been a labor dispute between shipowners and longshoremen. Yesterday, port operators locked out workers, and are expected to do it again throughout President's Day weekend. &#xA0; &#xA0;<br /></span><strong><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"><a href="http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/port-lockouts-and-seas-importance-supply-chain">Port lockouts and the sea's importance in supply chain</a> - Market Place</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;"> </span></p><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><p><br /></p><!--[endif]--><p></p><p>&#xA0;</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;">&#xA0;</span></p></div></div></div>Fri, 13 Feb 2015 18:50:54 +0000craig792 at http://www.changetowin.orgUS Maternity Leave is Messed-Up; Middle-class is Shrinking and Income Inequality is the Culprit; Bad Non-Union Jobs Might Be Killing People http://www.changetowin.org/news/us-maternity-leave-messed-middle-class-shrinking-and-income-inequality-culprit-bad-non-union
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/maturnity%20leave.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">We all know the middle-class is in deep trouble. But maybe you didn't know why many haven't really noticed until recently. That's because until 2000, Americans moved up and out of the middle class, which is not the case anymore. The percent of working people who have dropped out of the middle-class has increased significantly, which is why more and more people are visiting food pantries and &#xA0;are forced to rely on public assistance.<br /></span><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/business/economy/middle-class-shrinks-further-as-more-fall-out-instead-of-climbing-up.html?_r=0">Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up</a> - </span></strong><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">New York Times</span></strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /><br /> "I have trouble diagnosing just what went wrong in that odyssey from sleek distance runner to his death at 54, but the lack of good jobs was central to it," said Nickolas Kristof, New York Times. Kevin who worked hard and benefited from good middle-class union jobs, until many of those jobs went down the drain and Kevin hurt his back. Because Kevin hurt his back, he was laid off and forced to go on disability.&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;<br /><strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-wheres-the-empathy.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fnicholas-kristof&amp;_r=0">Where&#x2019;s the Empathy? </a>- </strong><strong>New York Times</strong><br /><br /> In the US, disability is oftentimes used as an alternative to paid maternity leave and if you're lucky, your employer will offer paid maternity leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act is weak, women are eligible for unpaid leave up to 12 weeks if they're full-time employees for a company with 50 or more employees, which excludes many women working two part-time jobs.&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;<br /></span><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-01-28/maternity-leave-u-s-policies-still-fail-workers">Can the U.S. Ever Fix Its Messed-Up Maternity Leave System?</a></span></strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"> <strong>- Bloomberg Business</strong><br />&#xA0;</span></p><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><p><br /></p><!--[endif]--><p></p><p>&#xA0;</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">&#xA0;</span></p></div></div></div>Wed, 28 Jan 2015 18:16:09 +0000craig791 at http://www.changetowin.orgMcDonalds workers filed Civil Rights Lawsuit; Former Target CEO of Canada Took Home $61 Million U.S. Dollars; Republicans Refocus Policy and Messaging on Stagnant Middle Classhttp://www.changetowin.org/news/mcdonalds-workers-filed-civil-rights-lawsuit-former-target-ceo-canada-took-home-61-million-us
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.changetowin.org/sites/default/files/styles/232x196/public/JP-INEQUALITY2-SUB-articleLarge.jpg" width="232" height="196" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden prose"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;">McDonalds workers filed a civil rights lawsuit after three Virginia stores fired a total of 17 minority staff members in May. Workers say that they were told by supervisors that there were "too many black people" working at the franchises. In the complaint, workers said store managers told them at the time that it was "too dark" in the restaurants and that they "need to get the ghetto out of the store." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/01/22/fired-mcdonalds-workers-say-they-were-dismissed-for-being-minorities/"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Fired McDonald&#x2019;s workers say they were dismissed for being minorities</span></a> - Washington Post<br /><br /></span></strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Target announced it would close its Canadian branch in the next four months laying off their 17,600 employees. But before the big announcement, last spring Canadian Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel took home a total of $61 million in U.S. dollars after leaving his post, which is more than the fund setup to pay all 17, 600 Target employees ($56 million in U.S. dollars) over the last four months. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/21/target-ceo-severance-canadian-workers_n_6517272.html"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Target CEO's Golden Handshake Pretty Much Matches The One For All 17,600 Canadian Employees</span></a></span></strong><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> - Huffington Post Canada</span></strong><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /> The Republican party seems to be finally acknowledging income inequality. At a closed-door meeting last week, Republican Majority <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&#xA0;</span>Leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Republican members to refocus policy on the stagnant middle class. Republicans have already been acknowledging a wealth gap showing a significant change in messaging. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: &quot;Tahoma&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 10.5pt;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/business/economy/talk-of-inequality-prods-republicans-to-refocus.html?ref=business&amp;_r=1"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Talk of Wealth Gap Prods the G.O.P. to Refocus</span></a> - New York Times</span></strong></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p></div></div></div>Thu, 22 Jan 2015 19:00:55 +0000craig790 at http://www.changetowin.org